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Scalia was right about Constitution

Liberal activists disliked the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia intensely because he refused to listen to arguments appeals court judges should view the Constitution as a “living document” to be interpreted differently as years passed and our nation and its people changed.

Scalia believed judges and justices should interpret the plain language of the Constitution the same way those who wrote and adopted it did.

As for adapting the Constitution to changing times, Scalia understood the document itself provided for that, through the amendment process that has been used many times.

“The problem with a living Constitution … is that somebody has to decide how it grows and when it is that new rights … come forth,” Scalia commented. “And that’s an enormous responsibility in a democracy to place upon nine lawyers (the number of Supreme Court justices) or even 30 lawyers,” he explained.

Precisely. Scalia was right. If the Constitution is to change, it should result from action by the people through the amendment process – not by a majority, possibly as few as five people – on the Supreme Court.

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